Overview

Designed by Microsoft, The Xbox 360 revolutionized the gaming industry with its up to date graphics cards and intense online gaming.

Xbox 360 combines powerful hardware, software, and services to bring you the best high definition gaming and entertainment. Xbox allows you to experience a more lifelike and dramatic gaming experience. Xbox 360 allows you to put your personality into your system with fun interchangeable Faces and Skins.

Specifications

Хboх 360 System Specifications
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPI	* 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each 2 hardware threads per core; 6 hardware threads total 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core; 3 total 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread 1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance	* 9 billion dot product operations per second
Custom ATI Graphics Processor	* 500 MHz 10 MB embedded DRAM 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines Unified shader architecture
Polygon Performance	* 500 million triangles per second
Pixel Fill Rate	* 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA
Shader Performance	* 48 billion shader operations per second
Memory	* 512 MB GDDR3 RAM 700 MHz DDR Unified memory architecture
Memory Bandwidth	* 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM 21.6 GB/s front-side bus
Overall System Floating-Point Performance	* 1 TFLOP
Storage	* Detachable and upgradeable 20 GB hard drive 12X dual-layer DVD-ROM Memory unit support starting at 64 MB
I/O	* Support for up to 4 wireless game controllers 3 USB 2.0 ports 2 memory unit slots
Optimized for Online	* Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, Gamer Profile for digital identity and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies or listening to music Built in Ethernet Port Wi-Fi Ready: 802.11 A, B and G Video Camera Ready
Digital Media Support	* Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD Stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras, Windows XP PCs Rip music to Xbox 360 hard drive Custom playlists in every game Windows Media Center Extender built in Interactive, full screen 3D visualizers
HD Game Support	* All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing Standard definition and high definition video output supported
Audio	* Multichannel surround sound output Supports 48 KHz 16-bit audio 320 independent decompression channels 32-bit audio processing Over 256 audio channels
System Orientation	* Stands vertically or horizontally
Customizable Face Plates	* Interchangeable to personalize the console

Xbox Live

Xbox Live is known as the online multiplayer gaming network designed by Microsoft in 2002. This vast gaming network gave Microsoft the competitive edge over gaming franchises such as Sony and Nintendo. The network allows players to play some of their favorite titles with gamers across the globe. The combination of Xbox Live with Xbox 360 proved beneficial for Microsoft's sales. Xbox live memberships went through the roof, gaming franchises such as Halo just made the Xbox Live addiction progress on. Today, Xbox Live is more than a vast gaming network, gamers now can buy movies, themes, and other multi-media items. Microsoft is in cooperation with Twitter and Facebook to develop applications where gamers can operate/chat with their friends on their favorite social networking sites

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Reception

Since its release in 2005, the Xbox 360 has had great success all over the world. Steady sales in Xbox over years has led Xbox to hit the 30 million units sold mark in 2009, which was said to be "Microsofts biggest year in history". Xbox 360 has had a steady lead over Playstation 3 sales ever since its release in 2006. Still having a lead in sales over Playstation 3 today and having a brief lead over Wii sales, from 2006 to mid 2007, today both are behind current Wii sales.

Region	Units Sold
Canada	~870,000
United States	~11,600,000
Europe	~11,000,000
Japan	~1,000,000
Worldwide	~28,000,000

(table for 2009 sales figures)

Console	Total Sales
Wii	~$52,000,000
Xbox 360	~$31,000,000
Playstation 3	~$24,000,000

(table for 2009 sales figures)

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Xbox 360 Games

Currently there are 730 Games for the Xbox 360.
Some of the top games are:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2
• Need for Speed: Shift
• Halo 3 :ODST
• Wet
• Grand Theft Auto 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony
• NHL 10
• Brutal Legend
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• WWE Smackdwn vs Raw 2010
• Dirt 2
• Borderlands
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
• Operation Flashpoint:Dragon Rising
• Fallout 3

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Technical Problems

Unfortunately, the Xbox 360 is prone to numerous technical problems. Since the initial release of the console in 2005, a moderate amount of users have voiced and reported their concerns with the reliability of the console. In order to counteract this problem, Microsoft extended the Xbox 360's manufacturer's warranty to three years for hardware related failure problems. These problems generate a "General Hardware Failure" error report". This is indicated by noticing that three red sectors around the power button are flashing red. More popularly, this error is known as the "Red Ring of Death".

Red Ring of Death

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Cited Works

• System Specifications
• Wikipedia.org